This introductory article outlines three fundamental regulatory developments in the EU’s legislation addressing digitalization and automation of decision-making: One is that across many acts we see a move towards more complex multi-level composite procedures, involving not only public structures with agencies, EU bodies, national agencies, but also co-regulation through standardisation in combination with – in several areas – audited self-regulation. A second feature of much of the current legislation in digital matters is that obligations imposed therein require an increased attention to information management – from sourcing to use, dissemination, sharing. This is a requirement for both public and private actors imposing ever more ‘granular’ knowledge and reporting of information flows in economic operators. A third is the growing role of interoperability which is being firmly established as a tool to create data exchange possibilities The diverse regulatory tools and methods are creating complex networks of legal relations and obligations which appear difficult to submit to oversight and compliance without strong protection of individual rights and procedural structures ensuring their enforcement.

One of the goals of this paper is to define the most important concepts for the comparative study of the constitutional risk management of the V4 countries. For this purpose, first, it considers the theoretical difficulties of conceptualising emergencies, especially focussing on what kind of response can be given to the widespread view that considers emergencies as a kind of legal “black hole” due to their unpredictability. Then a general definition of “emergency” is discussed which is broad and flexible enough to serve as a basis not only for a comparative study but also for the constitutional discourse of emergencies. Constitutional crisis management as a core concept for such an undertaking is also canvassed. After defining the basic concepts essential for evaluation and comparison, the article outlines the general types of emergency regulatory regimes. The development of effective regulatory systems for emergencies also has to face certain problems that every constitutional polity must solve. Finally, the paper summarises assessment criteria necessary for the evaluation and a comparison of the emergency constitutions of different countries.

This article examines the regulatory landscape of financial data access within the European Union, emphasising the implications and effectiveness of recent legislative initiatives. It provides an in-depth analysis of the Financial Data Access Regulation (FIDA) proposal and its relationship with existing laws, focusing on the possibilities for data access and utilisation in the context of Open Finance. The discussion evaluates the regulatory framework for automated decision-making (ADM) in European financial law, highlighting its strengths and identifying areas for improvement. By exploring the intersections of tech resilience, financial regulation, and data protection, the article aims to clarify the practical implications of current and proposed rules, emphasising effective practices and areas needing further legislative attention.

European constitutions differ greatly in the depth to which they deal with emergencies: while many constitutions devote more or less detailed regulation to emergency regimes, others almost completely neglect these issues or dedicate only some very short and vague references to emergency situations and powers. This article aims to carry out a systematic comparison of the emergency-related provisions of forty European constitutions, focusing on (1) the level of detail of the regulation, (2) the emergency regimes addressed, and (3) the restrictions on fundamental rights. As the study points out, only two out of the forty constitutions are completely silent on emergency powers. However, the remaining thirty-eight constitutions show wide variation in the level of detail of the emergency regulation; the vast majority of the emergency regimes are related to war or armed attack (or the danger thereof), to internal crises threatening the constitutional order, and to natural disasters. Concerning fundamental rights, the examination of the constitutional texts confirms that twenty-five out of the forty constitutions encompass some provisions on the restriction of these rights in a state of emergency.

This contribution analyses the EU’s new data acts. Interoperability is a common denominator of the EU’s new data acts. This paper demonstrates that the new data acts provide various approaches or concepts of collaborative governance to regulate interoperability. Although the EU’s new data acts are far from a uniform governance concept, we detected certain institutional arrangements organising the collaboration between private self-regulatory bodies, other private stakeholders and public bodies to lay down rules for interoperability.

This paper explores the necessary adaptations to the theory of administrative discretion when using AI systems. Regulatory frameworks in the EU, US, and Spain do not prohibit the application of AI in discretionary decision-making. Particularly, AI systems can be used when discretionary power involves correlations. However, to meet Rule of Law conditions, it is essential to establish adaptations and boundaries in areas such as duty of care, reason-giving, and judicial review. These conditions should focus on the impact of decisions on the affected individuals.

The paper outlines Czech constitutional law and the development of emergency law. Initially, the legislature did not expect emergencies to occur, perhaps due to the idealistic optimism associated with the general atmosphere of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1989 and the “End of History” thesis. As a result, emergencies were not regulated by Czech law in the 1990s. This changed after the great floods at the end of the 1990s, when “history returned,” and the need for some special rules for emergencies became clear. The first decades of this century showed that Czech emergency law worked well for short-term natural disasters. The game-changer came in 2020, with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for a long-term state of emergency. It soon became clear that the rules that worked for floods and other disasters did not work for long-term global pandemics. In other words, the legal system was not prepared for a situation in which emergencies were the rule rather than the exception. Legislators were unable to prepare a long-term legislative response to fill this gap. The memory of COVID-19 is fading fast, and there are no plans to reform the relevant legislation. Accordingly, any new pandemic or similar event will lead to the same problems that the Czech legal system had to deal with from 2020 to 2022.

Understanding the interactions between law, technology and society writ large is a very important task for legal analysis. However, the relationship between these areas can be very complex, resulting in a complex web of interactions and feedbacks. Fortunately, Science and Technology Studies (‘STS’) offers a varied toolkit which can help us to understand how these fields overlap.

In this article, I first providing a brief primer regarding STS and its core ideas. The article then considers some high-level legal discussions (particularly those relating to the concept of technology neutral law, and of Lawrence Lessig’s four modalities of regulation) and considers how STS may help to compliment or expand upon those debates. The article then examines how STS may assist with some current legal discussions, focusing on issues that arise from certain types of automated decision-making, as governed by the GDPR, Article 22. Finally, I provide some starting points for those wishing to incorporate STS into their own work, including some of STS’s limitations for law. I conclude that STS can be a very powerful tool for legal scholars, which can help to reinforce existing approaches and to produce analyses which reflect a fuller range of legal, technical and social nuances.

The paper offers a comprehensive overview of Hungary’s emergency law and its misuse over the four years since its introduction in March 2020. Hungary serves as a clear example of how a “state of danger” – initially intended as an exceptional legal measure – can become normalised through repeated declarations. The populist government’s continuous use of emergency powers has led to unchecked lawmaking and the manipulation of legal frameworks to advance populist agendas. The article argues that while Hungary’s detailed emergency provisions in the Fundamental Law were intended to serve as a form of constitutional risk management, after four years of living in a permanent “state of danger”, the scholarly debate has shifted to whether this very risk management has itself become the risk. According to emergency law theory, managing constitutional risks is equally vital in the emergency legal order. Yet in Hungary, both the black letter of the law and the constitutional practices observed during and after the COVID-19 pandemic – along with the Ninth Amendment to the Fundamental Law, which introduced a new emergency regime in 2021 – reveal that constitutional risk management has ultimately failed. This is manifest in the erosion of the separation of powers, the weakening of judicial review, and the shrinking of human rights protections. The article substantiates its argument by examining the related constitutional framework and constitutional practice in Hungary between 2020 and 2024.

This paper examines the impact that the finally approved Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) will have on European public authorities when developing, acquiring and using AI systems. It argues that, despite the initial disappointment that the Act may cause when approaching it from an administrative law perspective, and despite the fact that some of the solutions that have been finally chosen are questionable, it represents a remarkable step forward, duly addressing many of the problems raised in the literature in relation to the automation of administrative decisions and the use of AI systems by public authorities.

This article analyses the constitutional framework regulating states of emergency in Poland and addresses key issues related to their interpretation and implementation. The first part discusses the conditions for declaring martial law, a state of an extraordinary situation, and a state of natural disaster, as well as the specific rules for the operation of public authorities in such emergencies. The next part analyses the practice, revealing the consistent reluctance of Polish authorities to invoke states of emergency, even in circumstances that seem to justify such measures. Consequently, a state of emergency under the 1997 Constitution was declared in Poland only once – in 2021, in response to a migration crisis on the border with Belarus. No constitutional emergency was declared during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the introduction of far-reaching restrictions on individual rights and freedoms. The article argues that state authorities can abuse emergency regulations, either through their unjustified application or by deliberately circumventing them.

This article contributes to understanding how inexperience and lack of commitment to evidence-based decision making may undermine an otherwise broadly functional framework for constitutional risk management. As part of a focus on the “Visegrád Four” countries, it also helps understand regional dynamics since the COVID-19 pandemic as the most visible emergency after 1989. The article starts with a brief elucidation of the political contexts that have shaped Slovakia’s constitutional risk management, focusing on the developments from 2020 through early 2025. An analysis of mechanisms of emergency risk management in the constitutional framework follows, that helps identify key state authorities attempting to make decisions under serious time pressures. The implementation of the constitutional framework during the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the creation of new avenues for restricting rights and bolstering executive competence, with the formally powerful constitutional review mechanisms struggling to challenge these decisions. Ultimately, political context emerges as key: Slovakia entered the COVID-19 pandemic with a governing coalition enjoying constitutional majority and an aura of reform and hope. The emergency mismanagement not only facilitated the breakup of this coalition and early elections, but also a rise in emergency conspiracies openly hostile to institutions and actors committed to evidence-based decision making.

Large Language Models (LLMs) could facilitate both more efficient administrative decision-making on the one hand, and better access to legal explanations and remedies to individuals concerned by administrative decisions on the other hand. However, it is an open research question of how performant such domain-specific models could be. Furthermore, they pose legal challenges, touching especially upon administrative law, fundamental rights, data protection law, AI regulation, and copyright law. The article provides an introduction into LLMs, outlines potential use cases for such models in the context of administrative decisions, and presents a non-exhaustive introduction to practical and legal challenges that require in-depth interdisciplinary research. A focus lies on open practical and legal challenges with respect to legal reasoning through LLMs. The article points out under which circumstances administrations can fulfil their duty to provide reasons with LLM-generated reasons. It highlights the importance of human oversight and the need to design LLM-based systems in a way that enables users such as administrative decision-makers to effectively oversee them. Furthermore, the article addresses the protection of training data and trade-offs with model performance, bias prevention and explainability to highlight the need for interdisciplinary research projects.

The creation of a more sustainable economy is one of the main targets of the European Green Deal and the new Circular Economy Action Plan. Technological innovation is needed, among other things, to render materials, products, and production processes more sustainable. Given the goals of the European Green Deal, the regulatory concept of “Safe and Sustainable by Design” is increasingly receiving attention. The concept is (arguably) a precautionary and preventative measure that is implemented at the early stages of the design of a technology. Therefore, it is often described as a tool for lowering the risks that follow from efforts to create a more circular economy. The concept was included in the European Chemicals Strategy of the European Commission. The aim of the strategy is to accelerate progress towards the discovery of more sustainable chemicals and towards a toxicity-free environment. In this paper, we will explore the benefits and disadvantages of integrating the “Safe and Sustainable by Design” concept into the regulation of technology. As a form of regulation by technology, this concept can enhance sustainability. We will first describe the origins of the concept and its current use. Then, we will analyse its implications for the circular economy.

Our special issue examines the regulation and practice of constitutional risk management in the V(isegrád)-4 countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia). Unfortunately, the treatment of the COVID-19 pandemic made this enterprise relevant, as all four countries had to face a similar health emergency. This article presents the most important experiences and trends in the constitutional crisis management of the four countries, identifying the challenges that the constitutional emergency regulatory regimes have encountered so far. Our paper argues that despite the basically similar constitutional frameworks, these countries typically handled the crisis in a different way, and in the process many constitutional problems arose for which there was no clear or uniform solution. Since the purpose of the international comparative research that is the basis of our special issue was to examine the emergency constitution of these four countries in general (since it will have to be applied to possible later, other types of emergencies), in the last chapter of the article we examine the possibilities of a proposition that represents a novelty in the constitutional discourse on emergency situations: this is an option for the convergence of emergency constitutions.

While the private sector is leading the way in digital transformation, the public sector is perceived as missing the opportunity. The way forward in this transformation is pointed out as adopting data-driven technologies as drivers of public policies. This will undoubtedly transform the regulatory process. To better understand how these technologies would intervene in the policy cycle and the effect of this transformation on regulation, this paper studies the work of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on the matter. Adopting the public policy cycle as an analytical lens and illuminated by the insights of Critical Data Studies, this paper deepens the understanding of how these technologies could change the policy cycle and bring together steps previously conceived as subsequential stages. This transformation can trigger a real disruption of the regulatory process as we currently know it.

After an introduction to the notions of cybersecurity and cybersecurity-related risks, this preface introduces four collected contributions on challenges and perspectives of EU cybersecurity policies in cyber-physical ecosystem.

The swift proliferation of connected devices in the Internal Market brought attention to their weak cybersecurity standard, reflected by widespread and oftentimes unpatched vulnerabilities and successful cyberattacks. Attacks on cyber-physical systems have a critical impact not only on the Union’s economy but also on consumers’ health, safety, and fundamental rights. Against the background of the failure of the cybersecurity market of connected devices, the 10 December 2024 entered into force Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2024 on horizontal cybersecurity requirements for products with digital elements (Cyber Resilience Act, CRA). After casting light on the three regulatory foundational choices underpinning this EU legal act in the field of cybersecurity (ie, horizontal approach, risk-based approach, product safety approach), the article investigates the extent to which the CRA enhances the protection of fundamental rights, as claimed in the Explanatory Memorandum of the Commission’s proposal.

The European Union (EU) has extended the application of the EU emissions trading scheme to international shipping and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), and various countries are working on implementing instruments that put a price on greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from this sector. Due to these policy developments, GHG emissions from shipping may become subject to multiple pricing instruments in the coming years. In response, stakeholders have voiced concerns over the potential negative impacts that this could have on both the shipping industry and international trade, and called for double pricing to be avoided. Against this background, this article discusses the potential pros and cons of double pricing GHG emissions from shipping and identifies options to reduce its negative impacts. Overall, the article finds that the case to avoid double pricing rests on a balance of competing interests, contextual factors, and instrument design. If policymakers aim to avoid double pricing, regulatory cooperation between policymakers working on shipping decarbonisation and border carbon adjustment mechanisms can provide important lessons on how to do so.